


freeze frame, pause, rewind, stop

by blurrylinesandmessylife



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alt 3x05, F/F, angst but like maybe hopeful?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 15:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14405184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blurrylinesandmessylife/pseuds/blurrylinesandmessylife
Summary: "Obsessed with work". It was why Maggie and Alex worked so well: Two career driven women, operating in similar but separate orbits, with a mutual agreement that their sense of duty towards National City should always be paramount.They should've known career would be the thing that stood to ruin them.They should've seen this coming.





	freeze frame, pause, rewind, stop

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I began writing this after the breakup episode, except it hurt far too much at that time to really dive in and finish this. But with the resurgence of #sanversmatters, I finally dusted off the cobwebs and wrapped this up. (Though I still couldn't flesh it out in the way I wanted to without my heart aching. Seems I'll be forever bitter). 
> 
> Anyway, if Sanvers had to break up, this is somewhere along the lines of what I would’ve preferred to see. Because you don’t spend six months engaged without having any sort of discussion as to what your married future holds (THEY WOULD HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT CHILDREN BY THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). 
> 
> The lyrics littered through this fic borrowed from Pink’s tragically beautiful song, “For Now”.

“Sawyer, a word please?”

Maggie’s head bolts up when her Captain beckons her to his office. The bullpen falls silent as 15 cops turn to stare at Maggie.

“Bend the law for your DEO buddies again?” Maggie’s partner mocks while Maggie pushes herself back from her desk.

“Fuck off, Connolley.” Maggie bites back, shoving her shaking hands in her pockets. Ignoring the stares on her back, Maggie saunters over to Captain Miller’s office, her confident stride masking the sheer terror running through her veins. 

“What’s up?” Maggie asks when she reaches the doorframe. Miller gestures Maggie forward, pointing to the chair in front of his desk. Maggie plops down unceremoniously.

 “I won’t bury the lede, here. We’re opening a joint task force with Gotham and we want you to head it. We need our best there.”

“I – wait, what?” Maggie gapes comically, sitting up straight.

“You heard me, Sawyer. Gotham. We need our best there. We need _you_ there.”

“Wow. I’m honored, sir.” Maggie exhales in relief. “How long do you need me out there to get it off the ground?”

“Maggie.” Miller looks at her, sympathy washing over his features. “As much as it pains me to lose my ace detective, you’re not going on loan. The position…it’s - it’s a permanent allocation. Full time and in Gotham for the foreseeable future.”

 _Shit._ Maggie runs her hand through her hair. “Oh. Um. It’s not that I don’t…I’m not…I…look, my fiancée has her own career here in National City and she can’t…well let’s just say she’s pretty tied to National City.”

“I get it. It’s a big ask when you’re just settling down. We can look for someone else if you don’t think it’s the right move for your family.”

Maggie’s lurches forward, hands coming to rest on the edge of Miller’s desk. Earnest. “NO. No, It’ll be okay. I want it. I’ll talk to Alex and we’ll figure it out. I really am honored, sir.”

_Ain't it something when it all goes tragic?_

_How a spell can get casted onto something magic?_

Maggie preps herself for battle on her drive home from the station, well aware of the catch-22 she’s now in.

Because before Alex, her career was _everything_.

When she started dating Alex, they established from the start that neither woman would ever ask the other to sacrifice her career for the sake of their relationship.

Duty would always come first.

But now Alex is her _everything_ too and she doesn’t know what to do.

Maggie slams her hands against her steeling wheel in frustration, groaning that the gods have forced her to choose between the biggest career opportunity of her life and the greatest love of her life. Maggie wants both and she knows, in this cruel twist of fate, she can’t have both.

No matter what, she’s about to lose a piece of herself.

_What I wouldn't give to get back to where we had it._

However poorly Maggie thinks the conversation will go, it goes that much worse. Their conversation starts of civilly until fear bubbles up to the surface and then all at once, Maggie and Alex are screaming at each other so loudly that their German Shepherd puppy scurries under the couch, whimpering.

“How can you take a job in _another city_ without talking to me first, Maggie!”

“I didn’t _sign the freakin’ contract_ yet, Alex, I just said I wanted it and now here we are, _talking about it._ ”

Alex crosses her arms. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Do you even realize how _huge_ this is for me? We both know how you’d feel if I asked _you_ to turn down an opportunity like this.”

“And we both know how _you’d_ feel if I asked you to give up your career for mine.” Alex bites back.

Tears well in Maggie’s eyes, Alex’s words landing like a bag of bricks on her chest. The guilt of her own ambition suffocating her. It’s too much. Right now, all of this? Is far too much.

“I can’t do this right now, I’ve gotta – I’ve gotta go.” Maggie grabs her jacket off the back of the couch, shrugging away from Alex when she softens and reaches out to halt Maggie’s escape.

Alex winces when the front door slams shut in Maggie’s wake.

_Oh, it should've lasted._

Maggie winds up at the bar, slumped on a stool and nursing a beer. It’s not crowded, which Maggie is grateful for, because if ever a situation called for bartender advice, it’s this one.

“Mags, you’ve gotta go back and talk to her. Rationally.”

Maggie scoffs at M’gann, glaring over the rim of her pint after she takes a sip. “I’m always rational.”

M’gann quirks an eyebrow. “Rational people don’t flee when things get hard.”

Maggie drags her finger around the rim of her pint. “Hard is one thing but _this_ is… _”_ Maggie rubs her face, before whispering, “I’m terrified, M’gann.”

M’gann places a hand on Maggie’s forearm. “I’m sure Alex is, too.”

Maggie nods. “I’ll go back and talk to her.” She downs the rest of her beer before giving M’gann a pointed look. “Rationally.”

She’ll talk to her, sure.

But she knows how this ends.

_Now it's like I lied,_

_when I said I didn't need you._

_Alright if you left, I'd never be._

_Tonight, can we just get it right_

_somehow, for now?_

Maggie’s breath hitches when she enters their apartment later and finds Alex curled up on the couch with Gertrude in her lap, Alex’s eyes red and swollen from crying. Maggie leans back against the door; head thumping against it as Alex darts forward to greet her.

“Baby, we…” Maggie starts as walks forward and reaches for both of Alex’s hands. Alex shakes her head, lips pressing against Maggie, pushing Maggie gently back against the door.

“Can we talk later?” Alex mumbles as she nips below Maggie’s ear.

Maggie grabs Alex’s face in her hands, intent on forcing them to talk, but when she sees the heartbreak all over Alex’s face, she knows Alex isn’t ready yet.

Maggie nods and tilts her head in agreement. “I love you so much.” Maggie whispers as she leans in, kissing Alex desperately. Maggie walks them backwards through the apartment, exchanging sloppy kisses in between clumsy undressing until they tumble into bed for what they know is the last time.

They make it count.

_Can we just freeze frame, pause, rewind, stop_

_And get back to the old familiar thoughts?_

Later, Maggie and Alex share a pillow, noses brushing together as they try in vain to find a compromise.

“Kara could fly me back and forth to you every night.” Alex tosses out the suggestion as Maggie laughs.

“She’s not a taxi, Alex.”

Alex shrugs. “She’d do it for us.”

“I know she would.” Maggie yields, tucking Alex’s hair behind her ear. “But that’s a lot to ask of a person. Even if that person is Supergirl.”

“What are we supposed to do, then, Maggie?” Alex pleads desperately, shifting them so she can lay her head on Maggie’s chest. 

Maggie kisses Alex’s forehead. “I don’t know. Let’s see how we feel in the morning.”

Alex nods, her fingers dancing along Maggie’s collarbone as Maggie hugs Alex tightly to her chest.

They know what the morning will bring.

_Remember that time we were just kickin'?_

_But nothing had changed, nothing was really different._

Alex presses a kiss to the swell of Maggie’s breast when the sun wakes them up the next morning. Several minutes pass in silence before Maggie knows they’ve run out of time.

“The writing’s on the wall, isn’t it?” Maggie whispers.

Alex traces the band of Maggie’s engagement ring with her finger. “I’d never forgive myself if I held your career back, Maggie, but I can’t come with you. Kara -”

“-needs her badass sister.” Maggie soothes.

Alex props herself up on her elbow, staring down at Maggie. “I want _you,_ Maggie. I want to spend my life with you. It’s not enough to see you two days a month if our schedules allow it and settle for a pixilated version of you over shitty wi-fi in between.”

Maggie takes a shuddering breath, but before she can speak, Alex interjects. Her voice wavering, “You’ve worked so hard and I’m _so_ proud of you, and you need to take the job, Maggie. Gotham needs you. Even though that-” Alex’s voice hitches, “ – that means we can’t be together.”

Maggie wraps her arm tightly around Alex’s waist, face coming to rest in the crook of Alex’s neck, Maggie’s tears wetting Alex’s skin when Alex falls back against the pillow again. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“You did warn me fresh off the boat relationships never last.” Alex jokes, though it falls flat. 

“I was wrong, Alex. We were made to last.” Maggie sobs, pressing a kiss to Alex’s neck.

“I know, babe.” Alex replies into Maggie’s hair, soothing. “I know.”

“Can – can we lay here for a little longer? I don’t – I can’t...I’m not ready, yet.” Maggie trails off. 

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” Alex turns into Maggie’s body, clinging onto her tightly as they both weep.

_Then love showed its teeth like it was something vicious_

_No, no, no, let me finish_

“I love you.” Maggie cries much later as she twists her engagement ring off, dropping it onto the table with trembling hands.

Alex lets out a sob, gathering Maggie into her arms. “You too. Forever.”

They stand in the embrace for several minutes, neither willing to accept the end. Finally, reluctantly, Maggie pulls back. Alex tucks a lock of Maggie’s hair behind her ear, her forehead coming to rest against Maggie’s. She leans in, giving Maggie one last desperate kiss.

“See you around, Danvers.” Maggie whispers against Alex’s lips. She wipes a tear from Alex’s cheek and gives her one last peck before hauling her duffel bag up on her shoulder. She takes a deep breath, bottom lip pulled in by her teeth, before turning to the door and leaving without turning around.

Alex slinks against the door, back resting against it as her arms hug her knees, tears streaming down her face. “Bye Sawyer.”

_For now_

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my one who could’ve been.
> 
> If only.


End file.
